The sight of the grasshopper flitting about in the container forced Noah Chilton’s stomach to grumble and his lips to separate. His tongue was on the verge of becoming a major attraction for his classmates when Julia Harolds sneezed, lifting the curtain on his insect daydream. Noah snatched his tongue back into place and scanned the room for curious eyes. Mrs Harrington stood behind the desk with the grasshopper’s temporary home on it, attempting to apply her knowledge of how children think and act to get the semicircle of students refocused on her science lesson. Most of the class were now assessing if Julia had to complete any critical post-sneeze activities, while the rest were either staring at their shoes or memorising the quotes on the outdated posters on the wall behind Mrs Harrington’s head. Noah’s chuckle was so quiet, no one else heard it, and he wondered just how long it was going to take for anyone to put the pieces of the puzzle together and realise that he was half human, half frog.

The people who spent any significant amount of time around Noah – such as his mother and father – never offered him a reasonable explanation regarding the origins of his frogness. Therefore, at the age of five, Noah concluded that there were no reasonable explanations and that his life would have to be dedicated to learning about both aspects of his life: what he could show and what should be hidden; the skills that came naturally and those he would have to refine; and the individuals he could keep close and those he should keep at a distance. Noah joked to his parents that, given how far he could leap, these people would have to be some distance away. At school, Noah habitually sat by the library window during recess pretending to read books about insects, but was, instead, watching the other students navigate the playground like ants in an ant farm. None of the playground equipment would present a challenge for Noah, and he was confident his strength and agility would send the town – not to mention the world – into a spin from which it could not return.

Noah had found school especially difficult over the past few days, as he and his classmates used posters and books to learn about the different types of insects and what makes them among the most fascinating – and delicious – of all the animals. Noah, therefore, understood that bringing in a grasshopper for the class to examine was a terrific touch to get the students engaged. It was a shame, then, to discover that Julia Harolds was not yet done sneezing – making a horrendous wallop of a sound while it was her turn to hold the container housing the grasshopper. The second her muscles spasmed, the lid to the container shot off, providing the perfect opportunity for the grasshopper to seek safety by jetting upwards, towards the exposed beams on the classroom ceiling.

The grasshopper didn’t make it. Noah’s tongue had unravelled itself in an instant, finding its mark with ease and ripping it back into his mouth with a slurp and a crunch. No one was looking at their shoes anymore. His classmates’ mouths were wide open as he slowly chewed and swallowed what had been, only a few moments earlier, a perfectly valid specimen of a grasshopper. Recognising that his next move was crucial, Noah allowed everyone in the room to stare at him for as long as they needed. Using every ounce of her teaching experience, Mrs Harrington read the situation and interrupted the growing tension.
“Do you think you could go outside and find us another grasshopper, Noah?” she asked in a way that reminded everyone to remain calm. Noah nodded three times and went to walk outside.
“Wait.” Noah turned to see Julia Harolds boldly wanting to ask him something. “Can we… can we come and watch?”
Noah smiled. “Of course,” he said as he opened the classroom door and leapt towards the gardens at the opposite end of the school.

We tried to be welcoming to Sparkles when she first arrived, but apparently, she wasn’t in the mood to be welcomed. Before her, there were only two other mermaids I’d had the pleasure of introducing to the colony. It meant that I knew the process to follow when Sparkles arrived, however. First, I stared at her for a good few seconds and then swam over to ask her the three questions. Afterwards, I would have swum over to the Queen’s chambers and let her know that we’d spotted a new one, but I never got to make it that far with Sparkles. It was easy to spot the new ones because they were always staring at their own tails as if they were looking at the world’s most beautiful dress for the first time. And I guess there were similarities, like how the dress would lose its beauty if you wore it all of the time, but that’s how we spotted them, anyway.

There were three questions to ask a new mermaid before we could invite them in. They weren’t serious questions, but because the mermaids were new, they would answer them seriously, thinking that their entry into the colony depended on it. In reality, though, we would have accepted anyone, and this was just a little bit of fun. How long do you plan on being a mermaid? This, of course, was a trick question because once you become a mermaid, there’s no going back. Once a mermaid, always a mermaid. How many times have you eaten tuna this week? This was a great question because the new mermaid never knew what to say. We were obviously hinting that we ate tuna, but how much? A lot? Some? Watching them squirm trying to wrestle with an answer always made our day. Who do you wish to pledge your allegiance to? Queen Fafatoddle or King Namashashasha? Neither of these mermaids existed, but I bet you Queen Fafatoddle wished she existed because a lot more people chose her over the king, that’s for sure.

We gathered around Sparkles when she arrived, asking her the three questions in the most serious of tones, but she just swam on the spot, staring at us with her large, round eyes as if she hadn’t a clue what we were on about. Once we’d finished having our fun, and without saying a word, she dived down towards the coral below us, swam right underneath our tails and out into the depths of the ocean, her scales glistening before succumbing to the darkest of blues, which is why we called her Sparkles. Plus, we just thought it was a funny name to give a mermaid who obviously thought she was quite tough. She was the first and last mermaid we’d ever lost, and, although we’d hear rumours every now and again, we never really knew what happened to her. We just hoped Sparkles enjoyed being a mermaid as much as we did. Which, aside from all the tuna, was quite a lot.

The orb gave off such an enticing golden glow that I was surprised by how light it was when I first picked it up, almost as if it wanted me to carry it. I knew, however, that it was the creature sitting up in the tree, watching me pick up the orb, who wanted me to carry it. He had placed it there for me, after all. I got the sense that he wasn’t meant to give it to me because he flew away and hid amongst the branches of the willow tree as soon as I entered the park to collect it. He had told me when to come to the park and where I would find it. Once I held the orb in my hand, the creature flew away, and I haven’t seen him since, which is a shame because I enjoyed our small talks. If you could call them talks, anyway. Now I know that this has all been an experiment. A trick. To see what an ordinary eight-year-old boy would do with all of the power in the world.

It became like a pet. Something you had to nurture and care for. Something you had to keep away from danger and feed. Its food? My thoughts. It really is quite astonishing to watch something react to your thoughts. I remember just how careful I had to be after learning when I was younger that objects reacted to my touch. If you push a vase over, it will fall and smash on the ground. You can make a vase smash on the ground if you want to. Even that level of power came with great responsibility, and I had to learn to control it. I learned to carry my glass of water with two hands, I gauged the appropriate amount of force required to open and close doors, and I learned the subtle difference between pushing and shoving. The moment you control an object just by using your thoughts, you are forced to relearn all of those skills.

I wanted a sandwich. An egg sandwich, to be precise. There were times when I had been hungry, but not for anything in particular. Then there were times when the image of what I wanted to eat popped into my brain before I even had time to put it into words. A craving, I think they call it. That’s it. I craved an egg sandwich. And the moment I worked it out, the orb started glowing. The moment I started thinking about the orb glowing, it grew dimmer. When I thought about the sandwich again, it lit up brighter. Pushing and shoving. I decided to think about the sandwich and make the orb glow for as long as I could. It took precisely thirty seconds for an egg sandwich to materialise on my desk. The second I started thinking about what had just happened, the orb grew dimmer and dimmer, eventually putting itself out. I picked up the orb from my bedroom floor, placed it on the top shelf in my cupboard and ate my sandwich.

The orb came with me everywhere, and I probably disappointed the creatures with how little I used the powers they had given me. But, just like a toddler who might enjoy wearing an oversized jumper for a few minutes, I was unprepared for the difficulties faced by an otherwise simple idea. One night, I went out into my backyard and offered the orb back to them. It was a small offering, but I tried to make it as obvious as I could. I placed the orb on the ground and built some star-shaped patterns out of twigs to place around it. I used some yellow leaves to help make the stars stand out and some flowers, just because I thought that even the darkest of creatures must like flowers. Perhaps I had become too connected to the orb because there was a strong sense of loneliness as I watched it from the backyard patio. A screech echoed through the sky, making my heart race. At the same time, my older brother knocked on the door behind me, causing me to jump around and open it in preparation to scold him. He told me he just wanted to play a board game, so I used it as an excellent excuse to go back inside, shut the door and try to push the orb out of my mind.

It’s not every day you get to meet a real-life superhero. I used to believe that, anyway. Right up until the day I met Noah Chilton.

Noah was there the first time my family and I went down to Mansfield Lake. Being from the city, we had thought it appropriate to bring our colourful beach umbrellas and large beach towels. Noah’s family, however, had made a water slide out of some old plastic sheeting his dad had lying around in his shed. He told me later that they had spent the morning digging a trench from the top of the muddy bank down into the water and had then lined it with the black plastic. Noah’s father used a length of hose to invent a self-feeding contraption that continuously trickled water down the slide, and they were taking it in turns to run up, slide, laugh and swim. I first spotted Noah when he was sitting on his father’s lap so that they could slide down into the water together. Watching from a distance, it was hard to imagine Noah would play such a significant role in the next three hours of my life.

The second I felt confident enough to stand up on the slippery tree roots several metres away from where my family and I had set up for the afternoon, I lost my footing and sprained my ankle. Having never experienced a pain like that before, I wasn’t too sure exactly how to react.

So, I screamed.

Perhaps the scream was worse than I remember, because the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by Noah’s family.

“Tayte! Tayte!” Noah’s mother was standing over me, encouraging me to wake up.

I didn’t think the pain was worthy of me passing out either, but I’ll just add that to the list of things I’ve learnt about myself since moving to Greenvale two weeks ago. Both of Noah’s parents helped me to sit up straight and offered me a drink of water. As I sat up, I looked over at Noah and remembered feeling as though I couldn’t breathe, let alone drink a glass of water. After all, this was the first time I had ever seen a boy my age who could fly.

It was obvious that I was the last person there to find out Noah was able to fly, because everyone around me was so calm about the whole situation. Still sitting on the ground, I looked over at my mother and father to try to gauge how they were feeling, but all I received was a slight smile and a nod from my father, as if to tell me that everything was OK. I turned back to Noah, and there he was, hovering above the ground as though it were a completely natural activity to be undertaking.

“You must have a lot of questions,” Noah pre-emptively stated. “So, why don’t I answer one of them for you now?”

He flew slowly towards me as I sat on the sand, and I felt as though I should have been a lot more nervous than I was. Noah reached out and softly tapped my ankle three times. In a matter of seconds, the pain was gone and I could move my foot with ease.

I barely had time to appreciate just how fantastic this situation was before Noah’s parents lifted me to my feet. I stood staring at this young boy who could fly for a minute or two. He seemed surprisingly calm about being stared at, but I suppose that’s just something that happens when you’re a real-life superhero.

“You know, you can’t really appreciate the true beauty of Greenvale without seeing it from above,” Noah said as he gently flew towards me.

He held out his hand for me to take, so I did.

Before I knew it, Noah and I were flying above the trees in the forest, then above every house and, soon, higher than every mountain. At once, I understood the true majesty of this town and why Noah called it his home. All I could hope was that Noah needed a sidekick as much as I needed some friends.

I’ll be sure to ask him when we get back down to the ground. But right now, I’m feeling a little overwhelmed by just how much beauty there is all the way up here.

“It’s not that I think it’s not possible,” Dylan explained to his younger sister, Alyssa. “I’ve done the maths enough to know it’s not possible.” Alyssa was sketching again, and he was meant to leave her alone while she was sketching. But their parents were downstairs in the garden and weren’t around to hear Dylan’s bedroom door creak open or listen as he stomped his way from his bedroom to her studio. Ignoring her older brother had become a skill requiring nearly as much dedication as sketching itself. “You can draw your emotions all you like,” he taunted, “but you can’t dance around the facts. You’re never, ever going to be famous, little sister.”

Alyssa and Dylan were aware that most people didn’t live like their family. It wasn’t just the fact that they lived in the largest house in Greenvale; it was also how they chose to spend their time in that house. Dylan didn’t love to just count the numbers; he loved what you could do with the numbers. His bedroom window overlooked the valleys and mountains below, and, one morning, he watched the crows fly from one tree to another. By mid-morning, he was able to predict which crow would fly next, where it would fly and how many wing-flaps it would take to get there. Just as he predicted, very few people were impressed with such a feat, so he tried to move on from analysing birds to making more personal connections for those around him. His mother and father were forced to ask him to stop continuously making predictions about the family that were becoming increasingly accurate.

Alyssa’s room was at the opposite end of the upstairs area of the house and, next to that, was her art studio. Once the studio was complete, Alyssa’s mother informed her that it was not her studio, but the family’s studio. Over time, however, everyone in the family gradually accepted that the room now belonged to Alyssa and they agreed that, should anyone be occupying the studio, then it was essential that they be left alone. This was Alyssa’s suggestion, of course, and, for the first two weeks, it worked. “An artist needs a space to become so absorbed in their art that they forget about reality,” she told them. Recently, however, Dylan was able to calculate when his mother and father wouldn’t be able to hear him and, all of a sudden, he was backwards and forwards between his room and the studio just to show off his calculation skills.

“That’s not something you can know,” Alyssa attempted to inform her brother while continuing to focus on her artwork. “You can’t calculate whether or not I’m going to be famous. There are too many variables.”
“You don’t even know what a variable is,” Dylan replied. “But I’m not about to explain to you how I worked it out or how any of this works out for you.” He made his way over to the three-seater leather couch in the studio and made himself comfortable.
“What do you want, anyway?” Alyssa asked her brother impatiently.
“I want you to realise what a waste of time all this ‘drawing’ is and that the real beauty is in numbers.”
“You know, that’s the great thing about being an artist,” Alyssa responded while turning her easel around, revealing an admirable drawing of her brother in the exact position in which he now sat. “You can always create something that even the greatest mind wasn’t able to think of.” Alyssa smiled as she watched her brother’s jaw drop and she held an eraser up to her sketch. “Not to mention the fact that you can get rid of anything you don’t like.”
“Wait!” Dylan yelled, but it was too late. Alyssa rubbed the lines from the picture until there was no trace of her brother left, leaving only a beautifully drawn sketch of a couch.

Alyssa looked down at the empty couch and chuckled to herself. “Now,” she said to no one in particular. “Let’s see what happens when I draw a far nicer older brother this time.”

Bailey held the nozzle of the hose towards the mud monster’s head, and it responded by freezing in its tracks. “I’m going to shoot the water at its face!” she yelled to her twin brother, Jackson. “That way it will drip down and make him melt much quicker!” Jackson was standing by the tap some distance behind her, ready to release the water into the hose on his sister’s command. When prompted, Jackson was quick to point out that he was the older twin (“It doesn’t matter by how much!” he would respond when asked the predictable follow-up question), but today, Bailey had to take responsibility and control the situation. Jackson yelled across the length of hose stretching from the ground in front of him to his sister’s hand. “I give you permission to tell me when to turn on the hose!” Bailey could smell the dust drifting off the mud monster’s back and see the tiny mites crawling around its fingers. “Now!” she yelled, keeping her eyes on the mud monster while turning her head to project her voice towards her older brother. Bailey could feel the water snaking its way through the hose and knew that, in a matter of seconds, their troubles would be over.

That morning, Jackson and Bailey were attempting to build the world’s largest toy-block town using Jackson’s blocks. Their father had just finished moving the coffee table from the centre of their living room to the side wall to create enough space for the hospital and police station when the enormity of their task dawned on them.
“We’re going to need a third person,” Jackson informed Bailey.
“Great idea!” his little sister replied. “But where are we going to find a third person crazy enough to help us out with such a huge job?”
“I was thinking about that,” Jackson replied while placing an arch-shaped block on top of two cylindrical blocks to complete the bridge to the town centre. “You know how you can freeze enough water to get ice to make a snowman?”
“Of course,” replied Bailey. “Everybody knows that.”
“Well, I was thinking, mud is the opposite to snow, so what if we used your cooking skills to boil enough dirt to make a mudman? We would be his masters, and he would have to do whatever we tell him.”
Bailey couldn’t tell if Jackson was joking or not. She also couldn’t think of a reason why it wouldn’t work, so the two of them left their toy-block city and headed straight for their mother’s garden.

The garden was well-tended, so the twins were able to fill up three sandcastle buckets using the finest dirt their plastic shovels could find. They transferred the dirt to a pot, filled it with water from the garden hose, mixed it into mud and set about using Bailey’s toy kitchen that they kept outside to boil the muddy mixture. Rather than watch the mud boil, Jackson thought it was best that they head back inside and spend that time finishing off the police station to show their new friend how serious they were about their toy-block town. When the twins returned, they looked into the plastic pot and discovered that it was completely empty.
“Told you we shouldn’t have boiled it for so long,” Bailey said, shaking her head.
“That’s not true!” Jackson yelled impatiently. “You were more than happy to…” Jackson stopped, pointing to the muddy footprints leading away from the toy kitchen and into the backyard. They decided to follow them, Bailey leading the way with Jackson tiptoeing close behind. As the twins entered the backyard, they followed the footprints with their eyes, and there was their creation, eating the flowers in the garden by the handful.
“It’s a… a… mu… a mud…” Jackson stuttered.
“It’s a mud monster,” Bailey said, her voice surprisingly calm. “Go and hand me the hose.”

The pile of mud on the ground stretched from the outside wall of the house to the garden bed on the opposite side of the yard. Jackson put his foot in the mud to measure its depth.
“Well, looks like our mudman’s not going to be any good to us,” he said, wiping some mud away from his ankles.
“Maybe we’re thinking about it wrong,” replied Bailey. “Maybe we can just make the world’s largest mud pie instead? What do you think?”
Jackson looked up at his sister. “You’re the boss!” he exclaimed as they went to get the wheelbarrow to start moving the mud into their family swimming pool.

The Tree People had a reputation for being peaceful. Even the townspeople who did not agree with their lifestyle were the first to admit that the Tree People were not aggressive in any way and that their treehouses were, in fact, quite beautiful. What they did not agree with, however, were the laws stating that any tree already claimed by a Tree Person or a family of Tree People could not be used in any way whatsoever by the townspeople. In the eyes of the law, a tree where people chose to live was now officially a home and was therefore treated accordingly. This meant entire forests, once worth great fortunes, were now worthless to the builders, carpenters and businesspeople of the town of Greenvale, and this fact filled them with resentment for the Tree People. As in all situations where desires, beliefs and passions collide, a disagreement arose and, due to their peaceful nature, most of the Tree People’s homes were destroyed, leaving only one home remaining towards the end of it all: the House of Jett and Fia.

Unlike many of the Tree People, Jett and Fia had never been Ground Dwellers. All they had ever known was a life in the trees. Consequently, they had collected knowledge about many tricks and traps to keep their house out of sight of any Ground Dwellers. Camouflage was their most widely used trick, and Jett was consistently surprised by how easily the Ground Dwellers were bamboozled by a few strategically placed branches, sticks and leaves.
“YOU are the naive one if you think for a moment that fools aren’t easily fooled!” Fia said to him on more than one occasion.

One night, as they watched their neighbour’s home fall to the ground with the most ear-piercing of crashes, they believed they were now the last of the Tree People.
“Are we both about to become fools, Fia?” Jett asked nervously.
Fia gave her brother a loving smile. “The only fools are the ones who think you and I haven’t already thought of everything.” Jett chuckled as Fia lay on the panels of the hardwood floor to their home, listening to the sounds of the angry mob below taper off into the distance. Jett watched from the window as the last glow of the flames from the Ground Dwellers’ torches disappeared into the night, allowing the extraordinary sounds of the forest to fill the night sky before lying down next to his snoring sister and drifting off to sleep.

Jett woke up to the sounds of heavy machinery and dashed to the window of their treehouse. At the edge of the forest, four machines were knocking over trees as easily as he might have snapped a twig or a branch. He dashed over to his sister, waking her up so as not to panic her too much with the news that the machines were coming. Fia rushed to gather her thoughts, and the two of them looked out over the increasing amount of dust and dirt filling the air. She turned and dashed towards her rucksack, opening the front compartment and taking out the Horn of Arbre. She offered the horn to Jett, who shook his head, telling Fia that she had earned this right. There was no time for pleasantries, so Fia lifted the bell of the horn, pointed it out of the window and blew as loudly as she could.

Fia played the horn well, emitting a serious yet hopeful tone in a single, long note that echoed through the forest and over the distant horizons. At once, leaves, twigs and branches fell to the forest floor, and the Ground Dwellers turned their machines off as the sight of thousands of undocumented treehouses rendered them speechless. Further, the sight of hundreds of Tree People bellowing at the top of their lungs from the windows and rooftops of their treehouses was enough to make them turn their machines around and retreat back to Greenvale. Jett and Fia looked out at the ocean of Tree People, proudly holding their ground. Jett took Fia’s hand and looked up at her.
“They’ll be back, won’t they?” he asked his sister timidly.
Fia looked back at him with hope in her eyes and nodded gently. “But they will forever continue to underestimate us, Jett, which means that we are forever poised to win.”

Today was one of the most exciting days on Greenvale School’s calendar: the annual Science Fair. Amelia Cuthbert arrived at the school hall one hour before school started, just to get a half-decent spot on the day and, after twenty minutes, had finished setting up her science project on one of the display tables. The tables were placed in a U-shape in the centre of the hall, so the worst place to be was on a corner table. No matter how engaging or practical your project was, people tended to take a shortcut to reach the other side, completely walking past your project in favour of the excitement visible on any one of the three edges. “Science shouldn’t be the same as working in the car yard,” Amelia told anyone who would listen. “We shouldn’t have to sell the ideas contained in the project; people should want to come and investigate the wonders of science for themselves.” Today, however, Amelia was leaving as few elements of her project to chance as possible.

The brief was fairly straightforward: come up with a hypothesis that would help the town of Greenvale, test it and present your findings. On paper, it looked quite simple. However, Year 5 students such as Amelia had learned over the years that there were several unmentioned nuances the judges paid particular attention to. The students had determined, for example, that the project was far more likely to win if it involved moving parts. Last year, Simone Harrington won when she proposed and tested the hypothesis that there was a magnetic field around the town of Greenvale keeping the people from leaving. This wasn’t true, of course, but the judges did enjoy watching the miniature electric cars attempting to leave the incredibly detailed model of the town, only to be held back by the magnets hidden under the tables. The year before that, Jason McLachlan had won when he unintentionally blew up the projects on either side of his own. He was testing his theory that the water from Crow’s Nest Pond contained such high volumes of condensed energy that the town of Greenvale would no longer need to rely on an external power grid. He wasn’t able to prove his point, but it became evident that the judges liked explosions as well.

Amelia’s hypothesis involved helping the town of Greenvale, it contained moving parts and a miniature explosion, and now her project had a prime position. Her hypothesis? Well, no one’s allowed to talk about it. And the only reason the students can guess that they’re not allowed to talk about it is because it worked. The judges may have awarded first place to Olivia Frederickson’s experiment testing her theory that the animals of Greenvale were vastly more intelligent than those in the rest of the world (it had a mechanical spider wrapping up a bear in its web and re-enacted an avalanche caused by a flea), but all of the students were talking about what happened during Amelia’s experiment. By the afternoon, any resemblance to the facts of what happened in the hall had vanished, mixed in with the rumours and half-truths spreading across the school like wildfire. By the time the school bell rang, only one fact remained: that Greenvale School’s Science Fair is by far one of the most intriguing events of the year. Any other claim is no better than gossip.

In a world dense with even the most mundane of stories, there lived a story bursting at the seams to be told. For any decent story, however, it wasn’t enough just to be told; it had to be heard, and that’s precisely what this story wanted. The more people that got to hear a story, the better for the story, but most stories believe that being heard by one person is better than never being heard at all.

It’s difficult to describe the pain a story feels when it cannot be told, let alone heard, but it is a pain that builds up over time. The longer the story goes without being told, the more painful it becomes. It is a sad day when a story that wanted to be told fades away into nothing, never knowing what might have been if it was told.

The main reason nobody had heard this particular story is because it didn’t have a voice. And a story must absolutely, unequivocally have a voice. That is, it must have something to say if anyone is actually going to say it. And this story absolutely and unequivocally had something to say. What was that something? We don’t know, because we haven’t yet heard the story. There is a saying amongst the various types of stories, however, that the voice telling the story is almost as important as the story itself. It is common knowledge that a particular story delivered by a five-year-old has a very different impact from the same story delivered by a twelve-year-old or, at the other end of the spectrum, an eighty-five-year-old. All three with the same message, and all three with vastly different outcomes. The story had not yet found the right voice, so the story remained untold.

Growing weaker by the day, the story was getting desperate. Should it wait for the perfect voice, or should it risk being heard by fewer and fewer people? Assessing the voices currently available, the story chose to continue the search for the right voice and not risk being muddled up amongst the plethora of stories that rush to be heard but never gain traction because of their chosen voice. Sometime later, in a cacophony of irrelevant and outdated stories, our story thought it had finally found its voice.

The story started making the voice say things related to the story, just to see how they sounded, and was pleased with the outcome. These little teasers were heard, understood and reacted to. This was everything a story could ask for. But then, something unexpected happened. The voice started to tell stories that were designed to deceive. Yes, they were heard and understood, but the listener’s reactions were not genuine and the overall outcome was very unpleasant to watch. Seeing a breakdown in the connection between the storyteller and the listener is one of the most heartbreaking scenes a story can witness.

By the time the story made the decision not to use the voice, it was too late. The story was too tired from its search and had too much to say to entrust itself to the few undesirable voices that were left. Unfortunately, this meant that, perhaps, the story was not ready to be told, that maybe the world was not ready to hear what it had to say. We will never know, because it’s now just another story that will never be told, never get to be heard and never get to be understood. Maybe our reactions to not having the story around will coax it out of hiding. And maybe then, we can all live happily ever after.